I bought these diapers more than two years ago now when I knew very little about cloth diapering. I got a lot of ads from this “rocket scientist” who convinced me that these diapers would be the best choice. Unfortunately in the end I felt a bit scammed, and these have been relegated to the emergency pile for when we run out of other diapers.
Cost: $35 + tax
My cost: $24.30 + tax (on sale)
Date Ordered: November 18, 2023
Date Shipped: November 20, 2023
Date Received: Don’t remember
Highlights:
- Canadian Company
Manufactured in: China
Company Base: Toronto, Ontario
Established in: 2011
Lil Helper touts itself to be fun-loving, and their marketing is super cheeky, but I find the company dishonest. From what I understood, I would only need a few “shells” and a bunch of inserts and I would be fine to just switch out the inserts. Unfortunately, especially in the newborn and small infant stage, this was impossible.
*I just checked out the website on November 23, 2025 and they now say the shells should only be used twice before washing. Uh, what’s the point, then? There are other cloth diapering options where you can reuse the cover many times. *
They advertised their fleece as quick-absorbing. It’s not. If it were, then theoretically their system would work, and the pee wouldn’t run off the fleece insert and onto the shell, however it did, every time. I was confused, because there are videos of “Uncle Mo” showing how quickly the fleece absorbs liquid, so I e-mailed them, asking if there was a defective batch. What ensued was a very long and drawn-out email chain of not listening to what I was saying and relying on their help guides, Leaky App, and Fluff University to solve my problem, even though the problem was happening on brand new, never washed, inserts. Their claims about their products were simply not accurate, and they blame user error for them not functioning as advertised.
I also had an issue with the stitching fraying after washing. This product is not cheap. I didn’t expect it to be fraying right away. This was also blamed on me. They offered to send replacements, but I declined. I already disliked the product so much, and the fraying doesn’t impede on the functionality, it’s just another sign of poor quality. I had only been using the diapers for 3 days before I e-mailed Lil Helper.
Fit
Keep in mind that my 20-month old baby is in like the fifth percentile. He is a small baby, and this diaper has no more snaps to undo. It is supposed to fit up to 35lbs, or when the baby is potty trained. My baby is short and only 23lbs at 20 months, so I’m not quite sure how they will keep fitting. I already don’t like how bulky they are, but they also retain the stench from excretion more easily than other diapers we have.
Lil Helper’s site says their diapers are award-winning, but it doesn’t say what award they won or when they won it.
The Diapers Examined:
The outer layer of the shell is PUL and the inner layer is fleece. There are two types of inserts: charcoal fleece and bamboo. The bamboo is said to be super soft. It is very scratchy when not washed, but they say that these diapers need no prep. The bamboo inserts do get softer after washing and being thrown in the dryer, but they are still not as soft as advertised.
The inserts must be snapped in. Both the large and the small inserts snap into the same snaps on the diaper, which means that neither lay flush.
I mostly used these diapers when my son was very young and only had the small insert in. The two inserts together are incredibly bulky. Overall I do not like this system of diapering.
Smaller = Charcoal
Patterns I Purchased:
These are the patterns I chose (plus the penguins in the featured image). I’m not sure how I feel about wine-drinking unicorns on a baby’s bum.
Overall Impression
Despite our issues in the beginning, these got used fairly frequently when our son was small. When I built up a large enough cloth diaper stash, these got stuffed into the emergency corner for the very rare moment we run out of diapers.
The Goods:
- Canadian company
The Not-So-Goods:
- Expensive
- Misleading advertising
- Don’t fit as well as other diapers
- Bulky
- This system is particular to Lil Helper and cannot be used with another brand
Good for People Who:
- Like Lil Helper
- Like fleece against baby’s skin
- Like this particular system
I will never buy anything from Lil Helper ever again. Now that I know a lot more about cloth diapering I find their company gross and dishonest. Their marketing infuriates me so much that I have blocked their ads on social media. Their cloth diapers are no better than anything else already out there, and yet they pretend they are innovative and have a superior product so they can charge an absurd amount for their foreign-made diapers. Their margins must be incredible. Good for them, I guess.
wanderingfawn 
Leave a comment